Less than a week to go until the new Premiership season starts. We had a flavour of whats to come with Manchester City's 2-0 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield. City are the team to beat and its going to be hard to see who can beat them.

After that, it gets into the Lecister City territory with Everton at 250/1, Wolves 250/1 and Leicester themselves at 300/1. Given city won the league at a cantor last season, I cannot see them not winning it again. Liverpool might run them relatively close but they are not consistent enough to close the gap. I'd still be expecting City to win the league with a double digit points difference.

The price on Kane looks a bit too short for me. I much prefer Aguero at 7.0. If he stays fit, thats a great price. Salah did brilliantly last season but surely that was just a one off and he will revert to the average this season. He'll be up there but won't be breaking any records.

Combining both of those bets, you can get City and Aguero at 13.00. Thats actually really good value as the bets are dependent. If City win the league is quite likely that Aguero will score a lot of goals. If you did the double you'd get 11.62 so getting 13.00 is great. Compare with Salah and Liverpool. Thats only 17.00 whereas the double is 30.00.

The one that interests me is Southampton. 8.00 is a cracking price. They barely scraped through last season and 8.00 makes them joint 10th favourite to go down. Other tham that, I have no opinion.

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El Nacional have a mountain to climb if they want to go forward in the Copa Sudamericana after a 2-0 away defeat to Defensa y Justicia two weeks ago. The side played a devastating game and could have suffered a heavier rout. Last Saturday, they drew 3-3 with Delfin at home in spite of having held a 3-0 until the 75th minute. El Nacional earned a single point in two games in the second stage of the Ecuadorian league and also made it eight matches without a win in all competitions, with two draws and six losses.

Defensa y Justicia are near to clinching a ticket for the Copa Sudamericana’s round-of-16 for the first time in history. Following a convincing performance, they beat El Nacional 2-0 at home and will advance to next round even losing by a single goal. Defensa haven’t had any action since then as the league will start in two weeks, but they won their last three competitive games without even conceding. On away turf, El Halcon claimed four victories in the last six matches, losing the other two. I think Defensa y Justicia are much better than El Nacional at the moment and they should not find any difficulties to advance despite the altitude of Quito, where the game will be played.

With the first round of games over and well in to the second set, its time to look at the trends and see if we can find value in any bets.

No team has shone yet. Spain looked great against Portugal but average against Iran. Brazil weren't great, Argentina, Germany and France all looked average. Belgium came good in the end but it was against Panama.

A lot of penalties have been given. VAR is partly to blame but also some stupid decisions by defenders.

There have been a lot of own goals.

1-0 is the most popular scoreline. Seems like teams are happy to score and hang on to their lead.

With this in mind, here are some general tips

Unders a better bet than overs. Can always hedge in running if the game looks open

Underdogs are good to bet on but only the handicap, they still lose but not by a big margin.

Penalty given still is probably overpriced, even though many bookies have slashed their odds

Betting in running is a gold mine.

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Been a while since I wrote anything. Will be writing more next season. This week is the first leg of the Champions League Semi-finals. Betting wise, these picks are quite simple and fairly obvious, if you look at recent form and how the teams have been playing.

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Liverpool vs Roma

Liverpool are strong favourites here and rightly so. The knocked the previous tournament favourites, Manchester City, by beating them comprehensively over the 2 legs. I think they are the team to beat this year and should be clear favourites, especially since they have an easier route to the final.

Liverpool are sitting comfortably in the league in 3rd. They effectively gave up second place after losing to Manchester United the other week. They rested players in their last game against West Brom which they drew 2-2. They'll be fresh and up for this game.

Roma sit in 3rd in Serie A, a long way from the run away leaders, Juventus and Napoli. They did manage to knock out Barcelona though but from what I heard, it was more that Barcelona were happy to sit on their 4-1 home win and managed to lose 3-0. Serie A isn't a strong league at all.

I really fancy Liverpool to win this by a couple of goals and put the tie to bed. Asian handicap is -1 @ 1.88 which I like at Bet365

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid

Bayern have walked the Bundesliga again. They have demolished all comers. Last round in the Champions League wasn't plain sailing though. They luckily won away at Seville and played out a 0-0 in the return leg. Seville aren't a great side either, struggling to get 7th in La Liga.

Real Madrid are struggling. They really struggled against Juventus in the last round, needing a late penalty to get through, with the way the game was going, Juventus would have probably gone through if it went to extra time. In the league, they are well behind the leaders and struggled to get a point at home vs Athletic Bilbao. They have raised their game in the Champions League but I think this will be a bridge too far.

Its Bayern all the way for me. I would personally have them at odds on so 2.05 at Bet365 is great.